Optimum Design of Transmission Towers using STAAD pro with Joints and Foundation Design in MS Excel VBA

Abstract

India has a large population spread all over the country and huge demand of electricity supply by this population creates requirement of a large transmission and distribution system. In the project, transmission towers have been designed with foundations for two different zones differing in basic wind speed and terrain category. Optimization in terms of members’ requirement also has been done. This task has been achieved using Staad.pro and MS Excel- VBA. Three different bracing systems were compared on the basis of various parameters like deflection, weight, number of joints and cost. Analysis of the tower under various types of loading has been done using STAAD.pro and Excel-VBA interface was used for connections and foundation design. This work has focused on techno-economical analysis and design of transmission line tower structures. As far as the deflection criterion is concerned, the K bracing tower exhibited the least deflection under the given loading conditions cases for both the zones.